allergies

First we suffer through a long, record-setting winter, and now we find out it’s going to be a long, record-setting allergy season. May is National Asthma and Allergy Awareness Month — as if you couldn’t tell by all the sneezing and wheezing — and Tao Zheng, M.D., chief of the allergy and immunology section at the Yale University School of Medicine, predicts this allergy season “may be one of the worst in years,” she told Yale News. Why? A long, …

News, discoveries and … fun 1. Hippos and whales are cousins. (Learn more at Discovery) 2. In a British variety of soccer, players walk rather than run. (Learn more at The Blaze) 3. New evidence shows that feeding peanuts to babies might help them beat peanut allergies. (Learn more at USA Today) 4. A new mind-controlled bionic hand works almost as well as a flesh-and-blood transplant. (Learn more at Discovery) 5. Godzilla fans will have a new Tokyo hotel to …

Man, this winter just keeps on giving. Turns out those record-setting, lower-than-normal temperatures we just suffered through are now going to cause higher-than-normal pollen counts starting this month. Or, as Susan Kosisky, chief microbiologist at the U.S. Army Centralized Allergen Extract Laboratory, told the Washington Post, “Grab your Kleenex. It’s coming.” Evidently the long cold spell has given trees more time to build up pollen, which basically translates to lots of eye-watering, sneezy-wheezy misery as the weather warms and all …

This could be bad news for Bo, the Obamas’ supposedly hypoallergenic Portuguese Water Dog: A new study says it’s a myth that certain dog breeds are less likely to aggravate allergies. The research, published last week in the Journal of Allergy Clinical Immunology, finds that there is “no evidence for the classification of certain dog breeds as being “hypoallergenic,” Dutch researchers wrote. In fact, as Reuters reports, scientists found that “hypoallergenic” canines had more allergy-causing protein in their fur than …

Itchy eyes, runny nose, lots of sneezing — yup, it’s bad news for those of you who suffer during allergy season. Record high ragweed counts plus mold in the air from the recent wet weather will add up to the worst, and longest, fall allergy season yet, say allergy experts. “We’re going to have an allergy double whammy,” Clifford Bassett, MD, director of Allergy and Asthma Care of New York, told ABC News. Fall’s typical ragweed pollen levels are already high, …